Game session: 1/3/2011 1)
After leaving the Assistant, the Sin-Eaters decide to continue exploring the Autochthonous Depths further as they've never gone deeper than the hallway. They traipse down to the massive Egyptian doors at the end of the hallway and note the arched doorframe that stretches from floor to ceiling. The doors are covered in carvings of scarabs, sphinxes, and hieroglyphs; the Sin-Eaters try and figure out the arcane glyphs. Peter comes up dry and mutters, "Well, it's Egyptian…" while David recognizes a few of the glyphs – from an Iron Maiden CD cover. Anita growls at the boys in frustration, but Isobel believes the hieroglyphs mark the door as an entrance to a temple of some sort, one where sacrifices were performed.
Anita pushes on the doors and they open inwards soundlessly. The Sin-Eaters enter the temple and find it wide – all four can walk side-by-side easily – but not very high; the ceiling is about seventy inches from the ground. David's hair brushes up on the ceiling, so he has to crouch. The floor, ceiling, and walls are all made from thousands of semi-translucent pebbles, with skulls ensconced in the walls every few feet. Illumination is provided by the skulls, as their eye-sockets glow a reddish hue. Peter is the first to make the grisly realization that the "pebbles" that make up the surfaces of the temple are actually human fingernails. The other Sin-Eaters shudder at the ghastly discovery.
The Sin-Eaters continue walking forward, and find a series of steps that lead down. The ceiling is stepped as well, so the height of the ceiling remains seventy inches at any point in the temple. The Sin-Eaters descend the stairs to find a wider room with a basalt or obsidian slab in the center of the room. The slab is grooved to allow fluids to run off, and has rings embedded on the sides to allow for restraints. Peter lets curiosity get the better of him and he gently tugs one of the fingernails on the floor. There is a sickening squelch and a spurt of blood and plasm as the fingernail comes free, accompanied by a tortured shriek of pain. Peter immediately drops the fingernail and watches in revulsion as it slides back into place and is reabsorbed by the floor.
Disgusted by the building material, the Sin-Eaters turn their attentions to the slab. Isobel, still cracked out on her draught of plasm, goads Peter into climbing onto the slab to, "Ride that bitch." Peter retorts, "Sure, for ten bucks." Isobel only has six dollars in her pocket, but Anita ponies up the remaining four dollars while David throws in three bucks. Peter shrugs and climbs on to the slab. He ends up crouched on it, as there is no way he can stand upright with the limited ceiling clearance. He finds dried plasm in the grooves from previous sacrifices, and tiny arcane symbols carved along the edges of the slab. He takes a rubbing of some of the symbols for future study. 2)
Peter then notices the krewe has company, as a ghost in black robes and a gold Egyptian funerary mask is now standing behind David and Anita. Both Sin-Eaters are clueless about the ghost right behind them, so Peter clears his throat and announces, "We have company." David is startled, but Anita calmly looks at the looming ghost and muses, "You look like Steve Martin from the song, Walk like an Egyptian." The ghost doesn't get the reference, but demands in a low, rumbling tone, "Is this your sacrifice?" Realizing they've stepped in over their heads, the Sin-Eaters politely decline as Peter scrambles off the slab.
The ghost looks at Peter and growls, "I should have known you would be trouble." Peter looks confused, as he's never seen this ghost before. The ghost surprises Peter by revealing that his mother is incarcerated at Lowgate Prison! Anita remembers that Peter was adopted, and Peter admits he doesn't remember his mother at all. He asks about Lowgate Prison and the ghost replies that it is a place where those found guilty of breaking the laws of the dead are incarcerated as punishment. The ghost admits that ghosts, mortals, and other creatures are imprisoned at Lowgate, and eventually reveals that Peter's mother is a vampire, and his father was her first victim!
Peter is stunned while the others try and figure out if Peter was born from a vampire's womb. 3) Anita counsels the others to keep their shit contained, as their flippancy doesn't go over well with the masked ghost. Anita asks the ghost about Northampton, not expecting an answer, but the ghost advises them to be careful up there. He elaborates slightly and says Northampton is "shattered," as different realms long separated have converged there, but doesn't reveal anything further. He does indicate his title as a Justicar, which sounds fancy to the Sin-Eaters.
Anita apologizes to the Justicar for wasting his time with their ignorance, and Peter offers the ghost compensation in the form of his winning lottery tickets from the illegal electronics sale. The Justicar accepts the tickets as sacrifice and departs. The Sin-Eaters can hear rushing water and recall Erika's lessons on Underworld geography, but decide not to continue further. They head back up through the temple and into the hallway. Isobel and Anita are almost to the door to the garden when they suddenly realize Peter and David are not with them, so they backtrack and find the boys at the blue silk brothel.
Peter and David succumbed to the temptations of the brothel, and when Anita and Isobel walk in they find both men enjoying the oral attentions of separate ghostly prostitutes. Anita snaps that they need to go, but Peter is unrepentant while David slightly ashamed. Before the men can do anything, however, they discover the prostitutes can also generate sharp teeth to secure their clients, much to their discomfort. The Madam glides over and insists, "Services were agreed upon and payment shall be rendered."
Anita growls, "More teeth" to the prostitutes, but she and Isobel back off and leave the brothel, refusing any pleasure from the brothel's workers. The prostitutes' teeth return to normal, and Peter finishes quickly. He leaves to give David some privacy, but David has a bit of trouble finishing – especially when Peter's prostitute scoots over and starts pleasuring David from behind! David finishes about fifteen minutes later and slouches out of the brothel. Peter smirks but Anita and Isobel are less than amused. The Sin-Eaters leave the hallway without further incident, and climb through the dead garden and swim through the submerged channel.
When they get to the grotto, they notice the feral ghost-children sniff the air and retreat into their coves. Anita and Isobel mock the boys, but as far as Peter is concerned, anything that gets him off and repels ghost-children from nibbling on his crotch is a damned good thing, thank you very much. They wade through the grotto and climb the tunnel back. When they exit the Underworld into Forest Park, they discover its 4 o'clock in the morning. Anita groans but asks Isobel to drop her off at the Botanica; she'll sleep there for a few hours. She agrees, and the Sin-Eaters plan to meet up at 5 o'clock this evening for their trip to Northampton. Peter passes the rubbing from the slab to Anita for later research. David announces, "Tonight has been a suck-ass night. Literally." The others do not comment.
Isobel drops Anita off and then goes home to crash. David and Peter go to their respective homes and also crash. Anita settles into a comfy chair and sets an alarm on her cell phone. She falls asleep immediately, but jolts awake when she hears voices in the store. To her shock, she's now in the back room and its eleven-thirty in the morning! She stumbles out to the front to find six of her regular Latina biddies swooning over some young, hot slice of Latino working the register! Anita gapes as the young man – clad in boots and a tight T-shirt and equally tight jeans – rings through a few orders before announcing he has to speak "with the boss" for a few minutes. The half-dozen biddies look annoyed and glare at Anita.
The young man struts into the back room and Anita asks, "Don't tell me, your name is Victor?" The young man shrugs and nods – and then asks, "So… do you have any cat food?" Anita stares at "Victor" for several seconds as she struggles to process the fact that the cat can apparently shape-shift into human form, and the cat admits he pulled this image from Anita's subconscious and opened the store for her so she could sleep. Anita mutters she's perversely looking forward to confusing and arousing her grandmother, but agrees to head out and get lunch for herself and "Victor" if the cat will mind the store for a bit longer. The cat agrees, and adds that they have about $2,000 in the till already.
Anita shakes her head as "Victor" struts back out to the front, and then she heads out herself. She grabs some fresh milk and a tuna steak from a local market for the cat and some fast food for herself. She returns around 12:30 and is amused to find Abuela has entered the store and is staring at the new employee. Her grandmother turns to Anita and gestures vaguely to Victor; Anita smiles sweetly and says, "Good help is hard to find." Victor announces that he's leaving to eat lunch, and after that Anita will be resuming her shop keeping duties. There are some muttered groans as a few Latinas cast envious glances to Anita. She shrugs and takes over as the cat grabs his food and heads to the back room.
The Latinas eventually drift out when it becomes clear that Victor won't be returning, and Anita quickly tallies the morning's sales. She realizes that quite a few aphrodisiacs were sold under "miscellaneous sales," much to her amusement. The cat pads out in feline form when everyone is gone and warns Anita that something bad is coming, but he doesn't know exactly when. The cat doesn't believe Springfield is "ground zero", but will be at the periphery. 4) Anita muses on that and the day's sales, and the cat admits several of the Latinas showed him baby pictures of Anita herself.
Meanwhile, the other Sin-Eaters are having quieter days. Isobel sleeps and then does errands. Peter does his weekly shopping at the convenience store underneath his apartment and cleans his kit, preparing for the worst tonight. David gets food, relaxes, and watches some TV. Their geists are mostly quiescent; Fallen Snow snipes at Peter a bit, but The Discarded and The Corpsman are quiet. However, The Witch is agitated, and confronts Anita about trusting the cat so much. Anita argues internally that the cat hasn't done anything harmful, and she thinks it's bored, so for the moment its goals and the krewe's goals align.
The krewe gathers at the Botanica right before 5 o'clock. Anita closes early and runs through the end-of-day proceedings. She notes that once again she is out of protective items, so she grabs her spare charm warding against evil spirits from under the counter. So armed, she follows the others out for their trip to Northampton.
Recap originally published on Livejournal.